Many people consider copywriting one of the most financially lucrative skills you can possess. But can it help you hook up?

While I’ve never been much of a poet, nor a scribe of lengthy love letters filled with purple prose, I can attest to the power of the written word in matters of the heart, since that’s how I convinced my wife-to-be that I wasn’t a loser.

I first saw her across a crowded bar at our law firm retreat in the Texas Hill Country. She was fresh out of law school and brand new to the firm, so I decided to make her feel welcome in my own dubious style. As she gazed apprehensively at a shot glass, wedge of lime in hand, I sauntered over and said, “You don’t know how to drink tequila.”

Although I’m a big proponent of original content, I also recognize the opportunity to raise your profile that comes with joining in on the conversation that other bloggers have started. The key, of course, is to not just link out, but to link out and elaborate in a way that demonstrates you’re someone worth listening to.

In the new media space, Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 is a master at this. You can always depend on Scott to have insightful analysis of the latest news, and whether you agree with him or not, you’ll still come away with value.

While you may not be a rhetorical master, there’s an easy way for anyone to become a persuasive conversational blogger. The key is to offer more than just your opinion, since last time I checked everyone seems to have one of those. You’ll get better results if you give people something they can relate to at a personal level.

The 1974 bestseller Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance begins with the following disclaimer from author Robert Pirsig:

“[This book] should in no way be associated with that great body of factual information relating to orthodox Zen Buddhist practice. It’s not very factual on motorcycles, either.”

Likewise, this article isn’t going to teach you much of anything about Zen Buddhism, and absolutely zero about motorcycles. But I hope it does provide some insight into effective blogging, or, at a minimum, gets you to think differently about your current notions regarding content and the attention you seek with it.

The Four Noble Truths of Blogging

1. Get Over Your “Self”

Buddhists believe that suffering begins with our perception that we are separate and distinct from the rest of reality. In other words, our own egos make us miserable.

In blogging, the publisher / reader mindset can also cause you unnecessary pain. The key to successful blogging is an alignment of interests between writer and reader. It’s that sweet spot where what’s good for your readers matches what’s good for you.

Don’t focus on having a great blog. Focus on producing a blog that’s great for your readers.

2. Free Your Mind

Zen is all about seeing deeply into the nature of things by direct experience. Blogging that gets noticed and linked to is all about seeing existing information from a unique perspective and writing with a fresh angle.

Zen encourages meditation, and great blogging requires contemplative thought. If you’re truly going to get into lateral thinking mode, you’ve got to step away from the keyboard and think. Stop surfing, twittering, and reading RSS feeds and go for a walk.

Albert Einstein figured out that time is relative while on a stroll with a friend. Go do something else and a killer angle for your next blog post may just pop into your head.

3. Detach From Results

Another key to existential angst is an attachment to outcomes rather than simply focusing on excelling in our actions. This is true for any pursuit, including blogging and social media marketing.

When you focus on the outcome you expect from your content, you are almost invariably failing your readers. Moreover, while one great piece of content may change your blogging profile immensely, a failure to consistently perform at or near the same level will make you nothing more than a one-hit wonder.

While still steeped in Buddhist philosophy, Zen is more concerned with attaining wisdom through doing, in that daily life and mundane tasks will teach you more than any sacred text could. In this way, blogging and Zen are closely aligned—simply showing up and keeping at it will teach you more than anyone else can.

Zen encourages practitioners to learn from teachers and other students to better understand how to attain truth through direct experience. The blogging community offers a similar environment, but the final breakthrough will always occur in your own mind and be the result of your own actions. You’ve got to accept responsibility for your own success.

I’m sure the story of the origin of Zen can make this point much clearer than I ever could:

Buddha gathered his disciples at a lake on Gridhakuta for instruction. His adherents sat in a circle about him eagerly awaiting his teachings. Wordlessly Buddha reached into the muck and pulled up a single lotus flower. He then held it high for all to see.

Practically everyone was bewildered. But then the disciple Mahakashyapa began to laugh.

Finally, Buddha handed the lotus flower to Mahakashyapa and said,

“What can be said I have said to you, and what cannot be said, I have given to Mahakashyapa.”

Check out Mike Sansone’s Nuts and Blog Bolts on Blog Talk Radio, featuring copywriters Michel Fortin, Ryan Healy,Tom Chandler and Roberta Rosenberg tomorrow last night at 8 EDT. Should be some good stuff with this crowd. Sorry, got the live date wrong, but you should be able to hear the recording now.

I hope I didn’t discourage any readers with my grammatical errors that make you look dumb post (“dumb” just made for a better headline, which in turn helped it become the most popular post I’ve ever written). Check it out, I made a dumb mistake in my last post.

Jim Kukral asks me a question that I was going to try to answer, until I realized that the answer is what I write about here. I haven’t done a single thing to develop or promote this blog that I haven’t shared with you. There are no secrets; only poorly-organized information that needs to be compiled and edited into a book, which I need to get focused on.

An old familiar discussion has popped up again in the blogosphere. Every few months a debate breaks out about the blogging “A-List” and the inequities faced by those not included.

This time, Jason Calacanis (for the “A-List”) and Tony Hung (for the “blue collar” bloggers) go at it, with healthy interjection from Hugh MacLeod of Gaping Void. Tony makes good points about the fact that many A-List bloggers were already famous when they began blogging, and that they tend to be clustered in California and New York City, but other than that, I’m not sure why anyone (especially someone as talented as Tony) should dwell on this subject.

It’s time to bust a myth that’s been running around the Interwebs lately.

There are some folks who feel that certain subject matter makes it impossible to naturally attract links with content. Others know that with a bit of imagination, just about any topic can support the successful development of remarkable content that results in links.

Scoring attention with the geeks at Digg is easier with certain subject matter, and that’s true of any specialized audience, big or small. When it comes to our own profession, hobby, or circumstances, we’re all geeks. We want to know the latest specialized details that matter to us, and we love it when that information is presented in an interesting or even entertaining manner.